Truth rating: 1
6:23 pm, February 20th, 2012
(GettyImages.com)
A number of outlets are reporting that Aretha Franklin was “banned” from Whitney Houston’s funeral on Saturday.
According to the original report in the New York Daily News, Franklin “angered” the late singer’s mother, Cissy Houston, with her comments during an interview on the “Today Show.”
“Parents have to really talk to their children before they leave home,” Franklin told Al Roker. “They have to make sure when they leave home, they have all the right things. She left home with all the right things, but she just kind of lost her way along the way.”
The Daily News story suggests it was this “veiled criticism” of Houston’s upbringing – and not Franklin’s medical excuse – that led her to miss Houston’s service.
HollywoodLife, of course, seized on the possible controversy, writing that Franklin’s “drug comments” might have caused her to be “banned” from the funeral by Cissy Houston.
The site uses the fact that Franklin played a sold-out concert in New York on Saturday night as evidence that there could be something to the “ban” explanation.
But Franklin said in her statement regarding her absence from the funeral that she wanted to “stay off [her] leg” as much as possible until her concert that night.
And it warrants mention that during the funeral, Dionne Warwick called for Franklin – still on the scheduled speakers list – to address mourners, before being alerted that Franklin was not in attendance.
If there was any animosity between the Houston family and Franklin, it was awfully well hidden.
Curiously, HollywoodLife also leaves out Franklin’s rep’s comments to the Daily News in which she reiterates that Franklin was essentially incapacitated between concert performances over the weekend.
Talk of Franklin being “banned” from Houston’s service seems overblown and sensationalized.
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